Comedian Gary Gulman revels in ’80s and ’90s nostalgia on “No Can Defend,” an MP3 album to be released June 5 by Comedy Central. That
nostalgia extends even to the album’s cover, a parody of 1980s teen
movies (if this were a record album or even a CD, you could
appreciate that a little more).

Gulman goes a long way with subjects like Blockbuster Video, MC
Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Discmans and JCC teen basketball. He’ll admit
to worshipping Hammer and Ice, who get mocked now. “Hammer had a
Saturday morning cartoon and a breakfast cereal. Do you know how
hard that is to get?” Gulman declares. He also wonders how
Blockbuster ever went bankrupt, with its exorbitant late fees. “I
love it when I see a Blockbuster location closed down, and you can
tell they never power-washed the sign, because ‘Blockbuster’ is
still outlined in filth and grime – kinda like their business
model,” he says.

Gulman applies the same irony to Netflix. “I have 211 movies in my
Netflix queue. I’ll die with 100 movies still on my queue. I’ll be
on my deathbed saying, ‘Sonny, watch Toy Story 3 for me, find out
how the trilogy ends,’” he says.

On another piece, “I Stole A Muffin/Jewish President?” Gulman fully
indulges his Jewish perspective in stand-up, if you hadn’t guessed
that already. “If God’s gonna get upset about me stealing a muffin
-- if he’s that petty, I don’t wanna know from him,” says Gulman.

With his material and the way he presents it, Gulman shows perfect
pitch for Generation X listeners who grew up in the ’80s. He may
even be geared to a fan base a bit older than college kids or
twenty-somethings, but he does just enough to make his act
accessible outside those bounds.